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    TwinStar team

World chat moderation

H

Hotslice

Authorized
Joined
Aug 11, 2015
World chat is becoming more and more cancerous. I don't want to say it's toxic because some of the discussions are just lighthearted trolling or goofing around. Some of those conversations can cross a line too - I don't need to hear about chicks sucking each other's prolapsed assholes (real discussion from last night's world chat). But that's not the real problem here.

More irksome to me are the trolls (usually low level rerolls) that sit around deliberately insulting the server with some variant of "lol kronos iz ded" and personally attacking anyone who disagrees with them, and the fact that the GMs do nothing about it. I reported a player today who was kicked repeatedly from world chat, but despite persisting in his personal attacks in world after being told that it was a "final warning" by Gurky was not actually muted. I had to open a report in the forums. These types of trolls are growing in number rapidly as more people reroll from that other server, and we can expect a significant influx in the near future.

I can't put every single one of these people on ignore. There is at least one new obnoxious troll per day. My ignore list has been full for quite some time now.

I'm not asking for a heavy handed approach to moderation, as that can stifle the development of the community. But I think that world chat could benefit from more active monitoring, and in cases where a player is clearly out to be a destructive nuisance, that allowing them to continue does more harm than good. My educated guess is that Kronos is about to undergo a population explosion, and that we can expect to see even more destructive trolling in world. In my opinion, the current punishments for this are too lenient, and something stronger would be a benefit to the community as a whole.
 
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In regards to Alliance chat this evening, here's a bit of a breakdown and A) why it can occur, B) what can be done to help curb it by "us", c) what can be done to help curb it by "you" (the players)

The GM team do not always have the ability to keep an eye on world chat. There are times when none of us are available to watch both Alliance and/or Horde chat; either because we're not around in game, or we're out of game bu doing some work for the game, or we're in game but doing one of our numerous responsibilities which takes us away from world chat.

A) We are not a paid position, and as such we cannot guarantee that we will be around to keep things from getting out of hand. As what happened tonight, apparently there was a lot going down before myself and then Gurky were actually around. As first GM "on the scene", I have no background on what happened prior to my arrival however, I gave all Alliance world a warning to stop. Whatever happened before I was there, happened. I can't base decisions at that moment in time on stuff that went down while I was not around. Players who continued to disregard the blanket warning were kicked and/or muted by Gurky and myself. While players who received some sort of punishment (kick/mute) may not have deserved it prior to our intervention, after a warning is given there is no excuse and no exception to whom it applies. We agree that at times world can get out of hand. When we are around to handle it, we generally do so privately in whispers to specific players. When we are around and issues get out of hand, we take things public as was the case tonight.

B) There is no argument from us that there is room to improve from our side of things. Right now, our GM team is a very low on bodies which means a lot more work spread around to the rest of the team and a lot less eyes on world chat. That is our problem for which we are very well aware of. As such we will be opening up recruitment for our GM team shortly in order to bring in some more volunteers to help both improve our efficiency as a team, and provide the community with (hopefully) someone to turn to if issues get out of hand. We've been working out the final details over the past couple of weeks on the recruitment process, and it will be started shortly. So for any player interested, keep your eyes open for our news posting. Until then please be patient.

C) As mentioned above, we cannot have eyes on world chat 24/7. That is where our Blacklist forum helps the community be our eyes and ears. Take action by taking screenshots and posting them there so we can see what happened when we're not around. Yes this means nothing will be done short term, but that's where the ignore list comes in. Yes, that pesky limit is an annoyance for you as a player, but sometimes you need to rotate for the greater good. Once we see a report and investigate it, we take action and players found breaking server rules are punished accordingly. Also, please don't feed the trolls.

The last thing the community wants is a nasty world chat. The last thing we as a team want is a nasty world chat. It's impossible to avoid all the trolls/troublemakers, but if everyone chips in and does their part then our community as a whole would be a lot better for it. W can tell you that we'd much rather come online and see 20 reports from 20 players about player X, than see Players A/B/C/D fighting with Player X or feeding his troll to the point where we have to step in.

I hope that helps. Feel free to follow up if you have any further questions or concerns.
 
I don't understand. Leave the channel if you are offended by people being childish or *****ic. If you have such delicate sensibilities you probably shouldn't be in a public chat channel.

edit: i d i o t is a censored word? Really?
 
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Leaving a channel is an option, but imo the players concern is valid. It shouldn't have to come down to that. No community is perfect, but at the same time sometimes certain players do get out of hand. We generally keep to the shadows and would much rather it never come down to our intervention being needed. The last thing we as a team want is for new players to jump into world chat and get the wrong first impression of how actually good this community is.

For further context. The player in question who had been crossing the line significantly today both in world and in his guild (apparently) has gquit and left the server "to go back to Nos". So the troll did his dirty work, and this is the mess it left the community with.
 
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I think that we may consider to temporarily establish martial law and punish any kind of toxic behavior/trolling by one day ban as warning and one week ban as punishment for repeated offenses. Announce it two days before the event (and this "rule") starts and I think that number of trolls will significantly decrease. Everyone will think twice to troll if punishment is ban.

I know it may be too drastic, but the good impression and friendly community is important. And most community members are friendly and polite so they should not have any problem with it.
 
Peasemold said:
I don't understand. Leave the channel if you are offended by people being childish or *****ic. If you have such delicate sensibilities you probably shouldn't be in a public chat channel.

edit: i d i o t is a censored word? Really?
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You argue that players who dislike the world chat should just leave the channel, so I propose to you in same fashion that if you don't like censorship, just shut ur mouth and it will be no problem?

Now im willing to agree that both points sound a bit ... like taking the easy way out of the argument?

Ofcourse the world chat is toxic and i suggest throwing the banhammer a bit more casually could work magic.
 
I also encourage anyone concerned by this issue to report the behaviour, try to contact the team and not feed/answer the trolls. I know a couple will then say you are sensitive or even worst, they are trying to get a response from you, keep calm and stay civil as you know how to do, if you believe you act for the best interests of others, stay strong.

Not a solution, but isn't there an addon to increase the amount of players you can ignore? At least that would help those with full ignore lists.
 
Smoker said:
You argue that players who dislike the world chat should just leave the channel, so I propose to you in same fashion that if you don't like censorship, just shut ur mouth and it will be no problem?

Now im willing to agree that both points sound a bit ... like taking the easy way out of the argument?

Ofcourse the world chat is toxic and i suggest throwing the banhammer a bit more casually could work magic.
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I rarely talk in world or even join the channel. If the channel needs constant moderation and censorship, appoint some well mannered, mature players to moderate while GM eyes are elsewhere.
I just think taking up GM time to slap people's wrists for saying naughty words is a complete waste. Of course spam and egregious trolling should get stamped out but you really cannot expect people to not use "foul language" unless the channel is moderated 24/7 or those bad words are just blacklisted like Nostalrius is.

Not to mention what is offensive is a completely subjective thing anyway.
 
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nixomatic said:
Please make another channel that only level 60's can join.
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World channel is not an official channel that the Kronos team made. Our official channels are General, Trade, Defence, Guild Recruitment etc...

Feel free to create your own channel if you so choose :)
 
Peasemold said:
appoint some well mannered, mature players to moderate while GM eyes are elsewhere.
Click to expand...

Gief Liv /world mod plx.
I make world chat great again.
I build wall at Spam & Troll boarder and get Germi to pay for it.
 
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Peasemold said:
I rarely talk in world or even join the channel. If the channel needs constant moderation and censorship, appoint some well mannered, mature players to moderate while GM eyes are elsewhere.
I just think taking up GM time to slap people's wrists for saying naughty words is a complete waste. Of course spam and egregious trolling should get stamped out but you really cannot expect people to not use "foul language" unless the channel is moderated 24/7 or those bad words are just blacklisted like Nostalrius is.

Not to mention what is offensive is a completely subjective thing anyway.
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Yeah, my post was mostly aimed at spam and egregious trolling.
 
Davros said:
World channel is not an official channel that the Kronos team made. Our official channels are General, Trade, Defence, Guild Recruitment etc...

Feel free to create your own channel if you so choose :)
Click to expand...

How is creating my own channel gonna fix the lvl 60 boundary?

Because to be honest, i just leave them channels due to low level pricks - probably very insecure and fat in real life being annoying in world chat.
 
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Aieris said:
I think that we may consider to temporarily establish martial law and punish any kind of toxic behavior/trolling by one day ban as warning and one week ban as punishment for repeated offenses. Announce it two days before the event (and this "rule") starts and I think that number of trolls will significantly decrease. Everyone will think twice to troll if punishment is ban.

I know it may be too drastic, but the good impression and friendly community is important. And most community members are friendly and polite so they should not have any problem with it.
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...this may be a good idea, ...~>for this one month only !_!<~.. (//cuz the main-problem with those kind of things is that "the exception" becomes 'the normal', ..and after that month one might not find the way back to 'the old normal' ... ~ . ~ \\)
...but ya, I'm pretty sure it will work :p ~maybe do it especially in the first week of the event.. :thumbup1: :walkman: :yinyang:
 
I was checking the special channels wiki and wondering... Couldn't we create a channel like "Friendly" with martial law enabled on it and specific restrictions. Some players would be appointed moderators and have the power to ban from the channel or kick them?

http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Chat?oldid=332661

Then it is all about spreading word about it.

The issue is that I can't seem to be able to become channel owner when I create one, even if the name is unlikely to exist already (vf55djkbvrjdbvd). Maybe that's a bug, I don't know as I never created a special channel with moderators before. Also, what happens when the initial owners or moderators aren't up, does it give ownership to someone else?
 
Davros said:
I never said it would :wink:
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Let's go back to your question


Please make another channel that only level 60's can join.
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Our responsibilities do not involve making channels for players, especially those segregating portions of the community. Telling players they can't enter these channels is not community friendly. The game channels provided by the client are our responsibility. Further, we as a team are not going to manually add every 60 to this channel and those who ding 60, nor would we force any channel to players upon a player other than those we provide. Sure, in theory we could automate it so that players who are 60 get added to the channel, but what if they don't want to? yeah they can leave but it's a very negative aspect to force something upon a person. When it comes to World chat, we are forced to keep an eye on it because it tends to be the main channel used, and as such we often get reports on it.

So, that's where my statement comes in. If you make your own channel strictly for 60s then you can invite/kick whoever you want from the channel. So if that's something you want to make happen in game, go for it :)


 
Smoker said:
if you don't like censorship, just shut ur mouth and it will be no problem?
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Isn't that how censorship works, you're telling someone to shut up because they hold a different opinion on how things should happen? Censorship isn't just something governments exercise, even the average human can exert it under the pretense of "wanting to appears as a 'decent' person"

It ain't the end of the word because someone said a no-no word or something you disagreed with, the ban hammer should only be coming down on more extreme things in all honesty

Aieris said:
I think that we may consider to temporarily establish martial law and punish any kind of toxic behavior/trolling by one day ban as warning and one week ban as punishment for repeated offenses. Announce it two days before the event (and this "rule") starts and I think that number of trolls will significantly decrease. Everyone will think twice to troll if punishment is ban.

I know it may be too drastic, but the good impression and friendly community is important. And most community members are friendly and polite so they should not have any problem with it.
Click to expand...

But in all honesty what is "Toxic" behaviour really?

Some people have a higher tolerance level for words on a computer screen than others, while general politeness is a must, people shouldn't go slamming down on the independent thought alarm when someone says something they don't personally agree with

A friendly community IS important, however clamping down too hard results in what is dubbed in most places as a "hug-box" and turns away people who are afraid of being outcast for not sharing the same mindset as others
 
By trolling/toxic i mean rasistic messages, constant use of harsh language or spaming things like "you all suck, kronos is dead, goning on nost" etc.
 
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